


After the First Midtown Show

by lalejandra



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Midtown
Genre: Kissing, M/M, The birth of emo, Thursday - Freeform, Time Travel, midtown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-14 09:03:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16037264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/pseuds/lalejandra
Summary: Touch here for Time Travel and Wish hard!no_tags fall 2013, #24 Pete/Gabe -- accidental time travel





	After the First Midtown Show

The first time it had been a complete accident. Pete hadn't known what touching the art would do. It had been a gift, just a big round red circle with the FOB volcano painted inside it; underneath, in beautiful calligraphy: _Touch here for Time Travel and Wish hard!_

So, really, how could Pete have known?

In the past, he lost himself in a crowd of kids who had no idea who he was and hadn't cared, but had accidentally caught Gabe's eye. Midtown's first show ever, but still Gabe was self-possessed enough -- and sober enough, wow, so sober -- to stare right at Pete from the stage and grin at him. And blow him in the back yard of Geoff's weird house after, while Saves the Day literally shook the foundations.

After that, Pete started taking people with him, because he really really really did not want to fuck up a timeline or create an alternate universe or something else that only Mikeyway really understands. Especially because he had given past!Gabe his cell number because he's _an idiot_ , and that explains why when he and Gabe had met for the first time that _Pete_ remembered, Gabe had thrown a drink at him.

Time travel is _complicated_.

*

Gabe comes with him one time, and they go back to the same concert. Mikeyway tells them not to do that, and makes them watch, like, three separate episodes of _Doctor Who_ \-- one about a dad dying! What the fuck, M. Way? -- but they do it anyway. They stay outside, out of the way, listening to the music muted through the walls, shivering on a trash bag spread over Geoff's lawn. It's not even really a lawn anymore, it's so wrecked from kids standing and sitting on it to hear the music coming from the basement. 

Pete doesn't say anything about how Gabe's eyes are kind of teary.

He gets it. They're at the birth of an entire musical movement. Butch would argue, but he's _wrong_. This is where emo was _born_. December 31, 1998.

When Gabe disappears during Midtown's set, Pete thinks he's going to the bathroom, but he's gone for _so_ long. When Pete goes to look for him, Gabe is on his knees in front of -- in front of _Geoff_. Past!Geoff! Holy shit. 

Pete realizes this is totally not what he should be focusing on, but he didn't know that now!Gabe liked to suck dick as much as past!Gabe. Holy. Shit.

*

Pete needs a good reason to stop going back to the first Midtown show, so he takes Bronx to see one of Ashlee's ballet performances. Bronx asks about a hundred questions about _pointe_ shoes that Pete can't answer (no Google! His phone can't find a signal, because 4g hadn't been invited yet -- or, well, Andy said they'd had it but something something government conspiracy, Pete had stopped listening), and then falls asleep. Pete ends up chatting with a guy about how talented Ashlee is, tells him Ashlee's singing voice is even better. They're gone before anyone even knows they were there, really, except now Pete has this weird memory he can't shake of Ashlee telling him that someone approached her and her dad after one of her dance shows, which Pete _knows_ isn't how Ashlee started her career. 

Fuck.

The look on Bronx's face when he saw Mommy dancing was worth it, though. They have so little good stuff together.

*

The third time Pete goes back to the first Midtown show, he takes Gabe again. They go early because Gabe says they should go the night before. They end up in Gabe's dad's house in Jersey City, sneaking in through the garage. 

"Your garage code seriously hasn't changed?" Pete whispers, following Gabe through the cold garage and into the kitchen. The lights are off except for one, and instead of answering him, Gabe freezes and claps a hand over Pete's mouth.

At the sink is Gabe's dad -- a younger, more tired-looking version of Dr. Saporta. He has a bottle and a glass and he's...

Gabe and Pete back out fast and quietly. This is the second time Pete's taken Gabe to a past that's made him cry. Pete is the worst friend ever.

*

Pete can fix this. He totally can. And he does. They go back a week. 

Pete calls Rob, and Rob swears a week is a good time. He swears he and Gabe were hanging out at Rob's mom's house and having a fucking awesome time. They hide in the kitchen bathroom that's only half-done -- no toilet, but a sink, and a grimy pink towel that smells like dying flowers. Gabe and Rob are sitting at the kitchen table, playing cards and drinking Kool-Aide -- "With vodka?" asks Pete; "We were _edge_ ," hisses Gabe. 

Then Rob pulls out a black hoodie. It zips up the front and it's clearly not new. It's kind of worn at the sleeves -- Pete can see that even from across the room -- and it's missing the hood strings. 

Across the front, in the kind of block letters that get ironed on that weren't easy to get in 1998 (Pete knows!), the sweatshirt says MIDTOWN.

Fuck, Gabe is crying again. But it's a good crying, Pete thinks, because he gets kissed, which is nice.

*

This is Pete's fourth time at the first Midtown show. He'd wanted to keep it to himself, but this time he has Geoff and Butch with him -- no dick sucking allowed. 

("Even though I'm the hot neighbor?" Butch leered at him before they jumped, and Pete had been in the middle of punching him when they blew through time. It was the weirdest thing ever, because when they landed, Pete _wasn't_ punching him, they were sitting in chairs.)

Geoff keeps asking, though, why Pete calls it "the first Midtown show" like it's not also the first Thursday show -- "A band," Geoff says, grinning, "objectively more famous than Midtown" -- Pete doesn't have a good answer. Geoff was teasing at first, but Butch always _escalates_ when it's about Midtown, so the teasing ends in punching, and the cops get called. Jersey cops in 1998 don't have any more of a sense of humor than they do in any other year, _and_ no one around except now!Geoff and now!Butch got his "'cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low" joke.

Oh, shit, Pete totally wants to go find past!Jay-Z. He's only known Beyoncé!Jay-Z. Past!Jay-Z is probably way less cool. Finding him and seeing how less-cool he is could make Pete feel a lot better about himself.

*

Past!Jay-Z is just as fucking cool. Damn it.

  



End file.
